Last day at work

Today is my last day at work. I'm going to miss the people of Pyramid Research. We all went to lunch at Desfina, a Greek restaurant near our old office in East Cambridge where we used to hang out a lot. My friend and former Pyramidian Jose Mario showed up. This job was good to me, but it's time to move on. I wish everyone at Pyramid all the best.

28 Days and Counting

On Monday we got our staging e-mail. Staging is the pre-travel meeting of all the volunteers going to a particular country. Our staging city is Washington, D.C. and the date is Wednesday, May 26. Exactly 28 days from today. At staging we turn in forms, learn more about our assignments and what the Peace Corps experience is all about, and get to meet the 50 or so other volunteers heading to Armenia.

We spend the night at a hotel in D.C. and then leave on Thursday, May 27 for Armenia. We will travel through Vienna with a layover that gives us enough time to either sleep (my personal preference) or sightsee. Late that night we fly to the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. We land at around 5 am and will then head to our training site in Charentsavan about 35 km from the capital.

We will spend a few days in a hotel, meet and move in with our host family, and start our training. Right now we have absolutely no idea which of the villages around Charentsavan we will live in during training, what our host family will be like, or what training will actually be like. We have been told that we are in training 6 days a week. Looking at last year's schedule, we are likely to have about 20 hours of language lessons each week. The rest of the training schedule includes cross-cultural training, safety, teaching, and lots of other things. At the end of 10 weeks we should have some basic Armenian language skills. Even though we will be teaching English, we will need to be able to ride public transit (and read the signs and ask where the bus is going), buy food, and converse with our host family and the rest of the community. It is going to be intense, intense, intense!!

We are now done with traveling and having visitors. It's been a whirlwind since the end of February. We have counted very few days where we haven't either been traveling ourselves or had people visiting. It has been such a gift to be able to spend time with family and friends before we leave. Very difficult to get my mind around the fact that I won't be able to just hop on a plane to San Francisco to visit, or drive a few miles to see my sister, niece or brother. We are going to be 9 time zones from Cambridge, which is a really, really, really long way away. For months now I've been saying it wasn't a big deal. I was lying. It's a big deal.

But we are going on an amazing adventure, and we will be doing amazing things. We hope that some of it will make a difference. Even if it doesn't for the people we will be serving, I know WE will be different when this journey is over.

Big yard sale on Sunday. Looks like the weather is going to cooperate too (70's and sunny). We are slowly selling things in the house. Movers come on May 8, and our last night in Cambridge is May 14. Then we move to Hingham where my sister has graciously invited us to spend our last 10 days in the U.S. for a while.

We have tons still to do before we can go. And all I see right now is boxes, piles, and more to do than there are hours in the day. I know it will get done as we are a great team under pressure.

More later.

Susan

Endless Packing -43 Days to Go

It feels like we have been sorting and packing for months! My job ended at the end of January, and I packed the first box the first week in February. It's now the middle of April. I look around and see progress, but still soooooo much STUFF! Garage sale is coming up, and Craigslist is helping with a lot. Scooter went last weekend on a lovely, sunny spring day. TV and VCR went awhile ago. Coffee table tonight. More over the weekend. Fred is awesome with the way he can write the best ads to entice people to buy things. In the midst of all this I am trying to get a resume together, find a job of some sort, fight the unemployment people, go to career planning classes, and all the regular life-stuff that happens. According to the "date duration" calculator, there are 43 days until we leave for Armenia. We have started the process of assembling what we will need for the next two years, but we have a long way to go. Just saw a post about hooded, footed, polar fleece pajamas. Those may have to be on the list. Ok, that's enough for now. Heading downstairs to pack another box . . .

Susan

Fifty-six days left

But who's counting? We have not made enough progress on sorting, packing, throwing away, giving away and storing all our stuff. Plus we have a number of things still that we'd like to buy before we leave. I need a day pack, for instance, and new clothes, according to Susan. The house is still full of stuff: an unsorted, amorphous mass of things weighing on us. But we've been to San Francisco to see friends, Susan's been to Vegas and Portland to spend time with friends, we've been to Geneva to see my mom and my sister Katja, we've had Jim visit from California, my brother Rasmus and his wife Marie arrived today, and we've been studying Armenian. These things really are more important than packing. It wouldn't take more than one long day to throw everything we own into boxes if that's what it comes down to, although we wouldn't have anywhere to put all those boxes, which is why we need to reduce our belongings to a manageable pile. And we've been learning about Armenia: blogs, news, wikipedia, talking to people, emails to current and former volunteers. Apparently it's not quite Shangri-La, but most Peace Corps volunteers seem to like it.

Sorry about the self-absorbed banter. It's hard to think about anything else. But starting May 28 we'll have more interesting things to say.

72 Days and Counting . . .

I just figured out that we have 72 days left until we leave for our staging location in Philadelphia. As I sit here surrounded by piles of paper, boxes of books and clothes, and entire house full of stuff, I wonder how we are going to get it all done. Fortunately, I know that it's possible. After all, we sold a house and moved to Massachusetts in the space of 8 weeks. And we have waaaaaay more time than that now!

We are beginning to get more and more e-mails from Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV's) currently serving in Armenia with incredibly helpful suggestions, and we are finding those in the group about to head to Armenia. There is actually quite a bit of freedom in not knowing where we are going or precisely what we will be doing. That is tempered with a bit of panic at what we are about to undertake. The old "one day at a time" is going to serve us well here I think.

So I just learned that my high school class is going to have it's 40th reunion in October. It's really the 43rd because we missed the 40th in 2007. Shocking to believe it's been that long. Depending on our vacation status, I may be able to come. But as that is near the start of the school year, I rather expect I will be just getting settled in our new location. And Peace Corps doesn't let you take vacation during your first 6 months. It would have been fun to see everyone, but I will do it remotely.

That's it for now. Am learning to use a new Mac after being a PC for years. It's an adventure, but seems to work seemlessly.

Susan

Minus 20 degrees FAHRENHEIT?

In other words, minus 28 degrees Celsius. Simply cold. But that's what the Peace Corps says our sleeping bags should be able to handle in Armenia. I can imagine (and find) bags for -10 or -15 degrees Celsius (say 10F), but even that seems cold for indoor temperatures. One can build a warmer shelter in a snow bank.

Come to think of it, do Armenians too sleep in fancy sleeping bags in the winter? Don't they have blankets or possibly comforters? Susan suspects that there's something rather PC-specific about the need for heavy-duty sleeping bags.

This is just one of many strange issues we confront as we start to prepare for our departure. They do keep us busy. At least I (Fred) made a decision today and bought new hiking boots. It's a start.